Samsung's OLED panel in the Galaxy Book5 Pro 14 falls behind the competition

We recently reviewed the current Samsung Galaxy Book5 Pro 14, which is once again equipped with an OLED touchscreen with 2880 x 1800 pixels. The image quality is still very good with crisp contents, vivid colors, and rich blacks. The image is not grainy even on bright surfaces, which can be an issue on touchscreens. Movements are very smooth thanks to the high refresh rate (120 Hz) and there are different color profiles for the color spaces P3 as well as sRGB.

There are two disciplines, however, where Samsung is starting to fall behind: the brightness (especially HDR) as well as PWM flickering. The SDR brightness of 400 nits is still okay, but a maximum HDR brightness of around 530 nits is pretty weak, considering some rivals manage twice that. Lenovo in particular upped its OLED game this year and even affordable devices like the Yoga Slim 7 14 G10 now get OLED panel with peak brightness levels north of 1,000 nits. Honor also uses a high-resolution OLED screen in the MagicBook Art 14, which is pretty much superior in every respect.

Another topic is PWM flickering, which can result in signs of fatigue or headaches for some users. The OLED panel of the Galaxy Book5 Pro 14 flickers constantly at a pretty low frequency of 240 Hz with a comparatively large amplitude, which can be problematic. Other manufacturers like Lenovo once again are superior in this regard with higher frequencies (more than 1 kHz) and much smaller amplitudes.

Samsung is one of the biggest OLED suppliers, so it is surprising that the rather expensive Galaxy Book5 Pro 14 is not equipped with a better panel. Please see our in-depth review for more information.